How to Heal People Like Jesus Did (Part 2)

There are a variety of ways for you to heal people if you believe in Jesus.  Remember, Jesus called healing one of the signs that follow those who believe. If you believe in Jesus, this is one of the signs that may follow you.  Now by "follow you," it means that as you bear witness to who Jesus is, or as you do things in His name and for His honor, some of the signs of following Jesus are demons coming out of people, speaking by the power of the Spirit (tongues,) or supernatural deliverance from satanic attacks.

 

If you believe in Christ, there will be some sign that shows you are a witness of the Lord Jesus. 

 

As far as whether Mark 16:15-18 is "reliable," I'll paraphrase something a man named Watchman Knee said, "I tried it and it worked."  Know that as a believer in the Lord, you have authority to pray and act in Jesus' name as a sign of your belief. Let's apply this to healing people like Jesus did.

 

Jesus of course is our example, The Healer. 
The word of God says these things about Him:

 

1.  Surely He took our infirmities and carried our sicknesses.  Yet we considered Him smitten by God, stricken by Him and afflicted.  He was pierced for our transgressions.  He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him.  And by His wounds we are healed.  From the Prophet Isaiah
2.  Jesus appeared for this purpose:  To destroy the works of the devil.  From John's 1st Epistle
3.  Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. 
The Apostle Peter

 

When Jesus healed, his motivation was compassion.  He used His power to love. 

 

This is the very first way to heal people like Jesus did:
Selfless Love. 

 

When I'm sick I want to be healed, which  means I want to feel good and not feel bad.  So I treat sick people like I want to be treated:  I pray that God will take away their pain just as I want my pain taken away when I'm sick.




I remember how Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law from a fever.  We all have gotten fevers.  It touched me deeply to think that Jesus would heal something as "small" as a fever when He used to heal "big things" like blindness.  But then I remembered that Jesus knows the number of hairs on our heads.  Nothing and no one is too big or small for Him to care about. He cares about a mother-in-law's fever, and he cares about little sick children.

 

Once when my son was sick, I wanted him healed because I couldn't stand his pain. Caring for him, and trusting Jesus as his healer, I imagined all the ways I see Jesus and the apostles heal the sick. 

I saw that Jesus and His followers didn't heal people exactly the same way:

1.  First and foremost, they were always motivated by selfless love.
2.  Sometimes they commanded sickness to leave by "rebuking it," personifying the sickness.
3.  Sometimes they commanded a demon to leave, showing the demon as the source of sickness.
4.  Sometimes they "layed hands" on the sick, and the sick recovered.
5.  Sometimes Jesus didn't have to be in the area at all, like with the centurion soldier.
6.  Sometimes those who are sick went to the elders of the church and were anointed with oil.
7.  And sometimes members of the congregation confessed sin to one another and "the prayer of faith," brought forgiveness and healing.






Now all of this may not seem to give a "step by step healing technique."  But it does...if you start with selfless love. When we love people, we don't think of them as numbers on a healing assembly line.  We deal with people individually, like Jesus did.  We let the Spirit lead us in loving and healing each individual one by one.






Many times love is the last motivation experienced when healing is sought.  Those who try to heal are not compassionate at all.  In fact, they can put very real pressure on people to quote verses, sing songs, have faith, etc.  This is not loving.  Jesus never puts pressure on people when he heals them.  He will make it clear that it only takes the faith of a mustard seed to move a mountain of sickness.  But He doesn't require anything from a sick person than to simply come to him.  That little bit faith is enough. 






So what "technique" does God give you so that healing can be a "sign of your belief?"




The most basic technique for all of us, whether we have the gift of healing or not, is the loving prayer of faith.  Those with gifts of healings most likely already know their "unique technique" because the Spirit who gave them their gift already showed it to them.  But for you and I, who may not have the gift of healing, I believe we can see this sign in our lives to some extent through what we all know how to do: pray.






Don't we do this anyway?  When our loved ones are sick, we naturally pray for God to heal them.  Now we may throw in the whole, "Lord, touch the doctor's hand and remove the virus from my son's stomach."  We may add all of our so called medical knowledge to the prayer as to inform God of what is exactly needed.  We may think this is faith at work, and it may be. Either way, we pray naturally for healing as believers.  We do this in Jesus name, as a sign of our belief in Him.






I believe I can say confidently that even though I don't have the gift of healing, I've seen at least twice in my life someone healed as a result of me praying.  The least I would see was the person feeling better, or recovering.  The difference between my prayer of faith in Jesus' name and a woman with a real gift of healing is the frequency and power of healing that takes place with her gift.  She can almost heal "at will," like a teacher can naturally teach. 


I believe every believer can bring some kind of comfort or relief through their prayer of faith, even if not complete healing.  They can bless the sick person with the compassion and love of Christ, which is healing in and of itself.  I also believe each believer has a unique kind of healing comfort he or she can bring. 






For example, I'm not a doctor, but I can administer first aid until a doctor arrives.  I can clean cuts with hydrogen peroxide, put first aid ointment on the cut, and cover it with a band aid. 




But there is also something "supernatural" I can do.  I can massage!  Not just a normal shoulder massage. I have an ability given by God to intuitively find areas on a person's body where the exact muscle or nerve needed release.  It feels intuitive when I do it.  This is how I "heal."  The person usually thanks me so much and asks if I'm a chiropractor.  I tell him no, and that the Spirit enables me.  He thanks me, and I praise God.






The way that you can heal like Jesus did, or in Jesus name, is to first and foremost love the sick person out of compassion.  Remember, this was Jesus' motivation.  And this motivation is, in and of itself, healing and comforting. 






If you are not compassionate, you cannot heal like Jesus did.  You will be an obnoxious discouraging stench in the nostrils of a person already struggling to breathe. 


Love never fails.  If you selflessly love a sick person, your love will heal them, one way or another.  But if you don't have selfless love for the sick, or for anyone you are serving in the Lord, you commit the worse Christian sin....which you'll find out tomorrow.... God willing. 
Until then, heal like Jesus did.